By Graham Cook
Although cloud cover prevented a clear view, the transit was viewed from a NASA feed
On June 6, Venus passed directly between the Sun and the Earth for the last time until 2117. The Royal Astronomical Society of Canada (RASC) chose SFU’s Burnaby campus to host one of three viewing locations in Vancouver.
The transit caused the outline of Venus to appear over the sun, appearing like a smaller solar eclipse. That image, however, had to be seen as a feed from Maui, Hawaii as overcast weather blocked out the sun on the day of the event. Though they had solar telescopes, there was no available technology to penetrate the cloud coverage and see the transit. That setback did not stop the SFU Astronomy Club from hosting a crowd of about 50 people in the AQ, and gathering mainstream media attention as well: CBC news and a documentary filmmaker from the Knowledge Network were both on hand.
Ciara Morgan-Feir, president of the Astronomy Club and a member of the council of the RASC Vancouver Centre, spoke with The Peak before the event to discuss both the transit and the club’s outreach in general. Morgan-Feir stated that both groups provide events all over the lower mainland and decided to team up to hold the viewing. This, she said, came despite the fact that SFU does not have an astronomy program, an accomplishment credited to the fact that “it’s often SFU students at RASC meetings and putting on presentations about astronomy.” She added, “SFU has a really strong base of amateur astronomers.” Morgan-Feir contrasted SFU’s club with UBC’s, stating that UBC’s Astronomy Club is more focused on academics while SFU’s excels at outreach.
Morgan-Feir, a biological physics major herself, said that there is no push from the club to create an astronomy program at the university, and that they are content to remain hobbyists. She explained that this would be extremely difficult as there are “only two professors in astrophysics here, and they are both cosmologists, not specifically astronomers.”
Two other members of the council of RASC’s Vancouver branch, Leigh Cummings and Mark Eburne, both conversed with The Peak at the event. Leigh Cummings explained the historical significance of the transit of Venus, stating that they were “duplicating what Captain Cook did.” Apparently, contrary to popular belief, the main reason for his famed trip to Tahiti was to view the same phenomenon to “help with all sorts of scientific questions of that day, including calculating the distance to the sun.” He added that scientists are still viewing the transit in order to fine-tune instruments for the search for exo-planets, or planets that exist in other solar systems.
Cummings also discussed their involvement with Starry Nights @ SFU, which hosts a variety of events on Burnaby Mountain. One such event is their monthly “Star Party”, which is advertised as displaying “the many wondrous celestial objects that can be seen using nothing more than your naked eye,” as well as using telescopes to give “superb views of the Moon, planets, distant star clusters, nebulae, and galaxies.” In addition, the group holds daytime telescope and astronomy workshops for grade-school kids free of charge, under the direction of SFU chemisty professor Dr. Sophie Lavieri.
